Entering the Dreamlands

Ato. Stage 1

Mythos
Clues: –
The door leading out of your initial dream takes you to a stone staircase. Thousands of different stairways join together here, forming an incomprehensible nexus of steps where worlds and stories join together. Where the stairs meet, they form a single spiraling pathway descending deeper into the land of dreams.

Do not draw cards from the encounter deck during the mythos phase.

Objective - If an investigator enters The Cavern of Flame, immediately advance.

Julian Kok
The Dream-Eaters #41. Beyond the Gates of Sleep #3.

Priests of the Dreamlands - Back

Ato
At the center of the cavern is a pillar of flame flanked by two robed, bearded men. You recognize this scene from the writings of Virgil Gray. The priests, the cavern: it is all just as he described. Either you have ventured into the same dreamscape, or you are sharing in his delusions. "You must be tested," one of the priests says enigmatically. "Your ordeal will be great, and thus, so too will be your trial."

Each investigator loses all of their clues.

Put the set-aside Nasht and Kaman-Thah enemies into play in The Cavern of Flame.

Your slumber grows deeper. Add 1 token to the chaos bag for the remainder of the campaign.

Entering the Dreamlands
Entering the Dreamlands

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Reviews

At the start of this scenario, the chaos bag has no in it. This act, along with each of the next two, permanently adds a to the chaos bag upon its completion. By my reading (tell me if it's wrong), this means that if the investigators are defeated before advancing a single act, they'll play the rest of the campaign without any in their chaos bag. Yes, you'll take a trauma from the defeat, and you'll miss out on 10 or 12 experience... but maybe this isn't a totally incorrect option?

Pros:

  • Three tokens which, on Hard/Expert, ramp up to -6 or even worse in the next three scenarios, are excluded from the bag. You can almost think of it as three Permanent versions of Protective Incantation
  • Cards which particularly want to avoid the , such as Baseball Bat, Old Hunting Rifle, and "Hit me!" can be used with nigh-impunity
  • Mental bandwidth requirement of first scenario reduced to zero

Cons:

  • Up to 12 potential XP left on the table
  • Jim Culver's passive ability loses its effect on the chaos bag
  • Song of the Dead can no longer deal bonus damage
  • Fun of first scenario also reduced to zero

Notes:

  • William Yorick can get 1 XP by burying his Graveyard Ghouls or another Weakness enemy
  • You can avoid adding another negative token to the chaos bag of this campaign in Interlude III: The Great Ones, by either playing it as a standalone campaign, or by winning scenario I-B while choosing to leave Dr. Maheswaran with her patients, or by resigning or losing that same scenario. If you take the doctor with you and then win, whether she survives or not you will find that "The dreamers grow weaker" which results in the additional negative token.
zigludo · 3
But also most of the time the skull starts often soft during a scenario and gets harder. So it might be better idea to be included. — Tharzax · 1
Generally, I prefer having more tokens in the bag as opposed to less. The more you have, the less likely you draw the autofail, and as the campaign goes on you tend to be able to more reliably pass tests with respect to any modifier you see on these tokens. This is complicated by the symbol tokens having effects not dependent on failure, especially on hard or expert, but generally more skulls gets you away from the really bad effects you’re likely to draw from the other three tokens. — StyxTBeuford · 12985